Pico Pico: The 3 gallon experiment

[Narideth]

I've been sitting on this idea and finally implemented it. I've been gathering beautiful colored acans for a while now and knew I wanted to make some kind of garden or display etc, and today that idea was realized in the acan rainbow bridge.

This tank is coming along very well, and I've decided to run the GSP up the back right wall and when the firework cloves get bushier, they'll go on the left instead.

And a whole tank view.

 

[kevgib67]

Wow, stunning!

 

[Narideth]

So I've mentioned on other threads but not this one that I have a yasha goby calling this tank home - probably indefinitely.

Originally he was a purchase for my 13.5 evo, but the poor guy got sucked into the overflow, wiggled right through the slats where I lost him for three days. Luckily the water is high enough that he was never fully out of the water, but he was stuck there against the wall between the flow and the filter floss. I found him when I went in to check if the floss needed to be cleaned.

I thought he was dead at first and he wasn't moving well after I scooped him out, but I had him eating and recuperating in an isolation box for about a week and now he's a little champ. I decided to originally temporarily house him in the pico, but... honestly he seems really happy. He's out all the time, found a perfect little den behind one of the rocks in the back, and even lets the cleaner shrimp pick over him from time to time.

Look at that adorably grumpy face. I hope his fin grows back fully. It was chewed off or dropped from stress at the pet store. Making progress!

 

[Hugo_Fish]

oof.. im on the look for some captain America palys ... had some a while ago .. but got rid of them when i left the hobby.. they are my favorite palys.

 

[Narideth]

oof.. im on the look for some captain America palys ... had some a while ago .. but got rid of them when i left the hobby.. they are my favorite palys.

They are a bit subtle but really nice looking. It was definitely a lucky find, especially since the plug has that other mystery zoa on it. I have no idea what that is but they're living in harmony. I'd love for them to fill in the space between everything.

 

[Narideth]

I seem to have bad luck with shrimp lately. I lost the skunk cleaner that had been living in my pico a couple of days after molting. I don't know if there was something wrong with the molt or if something was off in the tank, but everything else seems to be fine except my GSP, which has been closed for a week now. All of the acans, firework clove and zoas are doing well. My yasha goby is zipping around and always hungry.

I moved the GSP into a spot with more light in case it wasn't getting enough in its new location.

I've since done two more water changes, which of course is super easy on a pico, so I guess we're still trucking along. Still looks great.

 

[Narideth]

Amazingly, I won one of the Reef breeders pico lights, and this thing is pretty snazzy! Definitely stronger in the PAR range than my previous light, which is to be expected. I started it off at 100% and the 2nd or 3rd day saw one of my button scolys releasing zooxanthellae, so I backed it down to about 70% brightness.

Most of the corals seem to be adapting to it fairly well. It doesn't appear as bright as the previous to my eyes because there's less white in the mixture, but that also gives the blue spectrum a little more pop. Probably the only thing that I'm a little down about is that it can't go blue only - there's no way to control the blue and white channels, however what I do get is a really nice mixture.

It really looks slick though, and I no longer get the light flashing in my eyes or glaring off my phone case when I go for video and pictures.

I absolutely -love- my yasha goby, he's always out, and I can often see him peeking out from behind the acan arch, since his cave is behind it. He scurries away pretty quickly but then comes right back out. (It might actually be a female, I'm not sure if it's old enough to tell yet)

I don't know if I could possibly be happier with how this pico is coming along. I discarded the old filter media the other day and replaced it with fresh, and other than making sure the ATO is full and getting good water changes in, it is kind of ridiculously easy.

I did have one small problem with the bulk of my GSP dying off, no idea what happened but I suspect it wasn't getting enough light in that back corner - a problem resolved with the new light, but luckily some pieces survived and it's regrowing.

 

[Narideth]

Edit: update - reduced light by another 10% - holding at 60% max light from the reef breeders pico.

I swear I never get tired of looking and taking pictures of this tank. I see it all day though so it makes sense.

I moved my bowser zoas into this tank because they were getting too much light and not really thriving in my other tank. The original frag was just one polyp, so it's pushed out a second in the other tank but they're still pretty small. I'm hoping to see them flourish in gentler conditions.

 

[Katrina71]

This is really beautiful! Well done!

 

[Narideth]

This is really beautiful! Well done!

Aw thank you! I can't express how happy it makes me to see it sitting on my desk (No matter how hesitant I was to put a salt tank beside my computer )

 

[Narideth]

I think sometimes those with larger tanks forget about the little lives in them. A clean up crew can be interesting but even I really don't pay too much attention to them in my other tanks unless it seems like I need more.

That's why I was so entertained and delighted by catching the single hermit crab in my pico cleaning out a new shell I put in for him. He rolling it in the direction of the spiral of the shell and dumped out the sand inside of it before hopping back and forth a few times testing it out. I caught one on video.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Edit: update - reduced light by another 10% - holding at 60% max light from the reef breeders pico.

I swear I never get tired of looking and taking pictures of this tank. I see it all day though so it makes sense.

I moved my bowser zoas into this tank because they were getting too much light and not really thriving in my other tank. The original frag was just one polyp, so it's pushed out a second in the other tank but they're still pretty small. I'm hoping to see them flourish in gentler conditions.

Nice looking zoa!

 

[Narideth]

Been a while since I last updated, but things are just doing pretty well overall. I did want to post this, as button scolys are still something of a new thing for a lot of keepers and I have three in optimal conditions in this pico.

While two of them are flourishing, one is not, and they are all under similar Par, flow, and feeding. The brown/orange one is just receding and I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up passing. It's been switched with the green one to see if it made a difference with location, but honestly even in the beginning it wasn't getting as good of an extension and it's possible it wasn't as healthy from the start? Really difficult to say, but this is the difference between two very healthy button scolys and one very unhappy and receding one.

Pretty sure the white in the middle might even be the skeleton showing so I don't have much hope of it recovering at this point. Maybe the sexy shrimp nibbling a few months back did it in - or at the very least didn't help it any.

 

[Narideth]

Since I didn't include an updated picture of the whole tank last post, here's a short video. The acans are telling me it's time for a water change, but everything is doing sooo well. I swapped the green star polyps and the red gracilaria so they each have a better spot to grow.

 

[Narideth]

Alas, my little yasha goby has perished. He stopped eating and I couldn't get enough food into him. He was always pretty slim - the store I purchased him from even gave me a discount because he'd lost his upper fin - which grew back.

Unfortunate, but what was more unfortunate, is that I could not find the body. So it's proceeded to dump nutrients into the pico which the corals are not happy about. Nitrates were through the roof so I've done a couple of water changes now to see if they'll settle back down. I haven't lost anything yet but the hammer hasn't opened fully for a few days and some of the acans are looking deflated.

Hopefully nice fresh water will get everything back on track! I also was able to prove my build actually works - I took out and cleaned the pump with the removable filter chamber I made, and it worked SO well. Renewed water movement should also make them happier.

I'll update in a week or so with how they've fared. Wish us luck

 

[ackshee]

A fellow pico owner!

Sorry to hear about your goby. I hope the tank bounces back and recovers quickly. I'll be following along.

 

[ackshee]

How is everything going here?

 

[Narideth]

It's coming along. I had to remove the hammer, something about the tank just isn't doing it for it now, even though it was great before. It's in my larger, stable system. I may lose that one, so I have a spare space for something new in the wall-mounted frag rock. My zoas haven't opened back up fully as if they're still upset, but the GSP and acans are all doing pretty good. My button scolys are fluffy, but not as fluffy as before.

I'm starting to wonder if there's something about the waste of a fish that helps these corals to do their thing in a smaller ecosystem. There's snails and a hermit crab as other 'animals' but they just don't produce much waste, and I feed the tank for them pretty infrequently. I'm going to keep waiting, do another water change, keep pushing the nitrates back down and not rush into any big changes.

 

[Narideth]

Update!

Well, I didn't officially lose anything, but the corals have been mighty upset for a while. They're settling down though, fluffing back up with regular consistency. Ironically the GSP which I can never get to grow, is very VERY happy and looks lovely and lush with nice long tendrils.

Three of my seven acan mini colonies have shrunk down to one or two heads, but they may still recover as they're starting to fluff back up as well. The orange/yellow hammer I removed to a different tank, and it's doing well there. Some flesh loss but it's stable and I'll let it keep recovering there while I consider what to fill its wall space with.

I also removed one of the small mixed plugs with zoas and palys on it and gave it a home in a different tank where the zoas just flourish, and they're doing really well. I'd have lost some of these if I didn't have other tanks to place them in.

Pico tanks really are a fragile ecosystem, but this one is coming back into balance. The nassarius snail died, and the hermit crab happily moved into its shell. I think the only thing I'm truly discontent with now, is the light. The pictures look decent but the IRL is... bleached looking. It isn't making the colors pop well. It certainly grows the corals but they're not nearly as interesting to look at. A problem that can wait for now.

 

[ISFNick]

Such a nice build thread. Would love to see some more pictures with the deep blues and orange filter!

What does your maintenance routine look like? I do regular weekly 1-gallon water changes on my 3-gal.